living with type 1 diabetes is a 'marathon, not a sprint'
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sonia yung and her husband greg travelled to lake louise in alberta last september. sonia was misdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes before her correct diagnosis of type 1 diabetes months later.
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what if the hobby you enjoyed the most suddenly felt like a guilty pleasure because others didn’t approve of it?
for sonia yung, baking is a passion. the former toronto corporate lawyer says she has absolutely perfected her pie crust, which is no easy feat unless you’re devoted to pastry and taking culinary courses at george brown college’s renowned chef school (she has). her apple pie, especially, is a slice of heaven. then she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a disease where your body can’t produce insulin to regulate the blood sugar that fuels your body.
sweets, typically high in some form of sugar, can spike blood sugar, so you need insulin to counter it.
“when you spend 50 years not worrying about your diet, it’s a tough transition,” sonia says of her diagnosis of type 1 diabetes at age 50. “all of a sudden it’s like, ‘ok, you have type 1, and you shouldn’t be eating that?’”
dealing with stigma surrounding diabetes and sweets
sonia quickly found ways around making her dessert creations less sugar-laden. she also worked with a diabetes educator to develop healthy eating habits, which include making room for treats. the assumption that people with diabetes can’t eat sweets is false; they just have to monitor their blood sugar and adjust their insulin intake to keep blood sugar in a healthy range.
“i love to bake and actually having that education (with a diabetes professional) helped me change recipes as i needed to.” apples are naturally sweet, so she adds a tablespoon of maple syrup and vanilla powder from the spice store that smells “insanely” good.
“there are ways to make up the flavour and i’ve discovered you don’t need that much sugar in recipes—you can cut it by two-thirds—and you will not notice. your cookies might not spread as much, so squish them with a spatula, right?”
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getting 2022年世界杯名单猜测 with type 1 diabetes
as it turns out, sonia, 57, says she got type 1 diabetes at the right time. her hectic job, which involved long hours and frequent travel, didn’t really mesh with managing a complex disease and living healthily.
before, she’d always be rushed and wouldn’t bother with breakfast, for example. with diabetes, however, you’ve got to stay on top of regular meals, get regular sleep, include activity and manage stress. she moved to a less intense job with a small firm and eventually decided to consult and pursue other interests.
“once i had stopped private practice, by about a week later, i noticed my blood sugar levels had improved by a good 15 per cent because the chronic stress was gone. i’m not 100 per cent retired in that i’m still doing. i’m just wrapping up a project for the guys at the investment bank.”
she also runs a business with her best friend that offers online creative writing courses and she chairs the board of directors at diabetes canada, an organization she’s proud to be a part of to help support people living with diabetes and create awareness. she’s been through it all and wants to give back.
here’s the wrinkle: sonia, who was born in hong kong and raised in winnipeg, was misdiagnosed at first with type 2 diabetes, where your body doesn’t use insulin properly. it’s a common diagnosis for south asians, she says. in canada, statistics published in 2022 note that 14.4 per cent of south asians have type 2 diabetes, the highest prevalence of any other ethnic group in the country, linked in part to genetic variants.
“my eyes were getting blurry, and i was cursing the opticians at the big mall where i get the discount cheap glasses, thinking, ‘oh, they didn’t get my new prescription right.’ but it wasn’t their fault. and then i just didn’t think anything of it. i was just really tired, but i was tired all the time.”
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sonia went for her annual checkup, mentioned her eyes and her doctor recommended she see her optometrist who told her that she either had cataracts in both eyes or diabetes. back with her family doctor, she went for blood work that showed elevated blood sugar levels. her doctor said it was type 2 diabetes but also referred her to an endocrinologist for further investigation. he put her on type 2 medication.
“he saw the report, an asian female turning 50, so figured type 2. so, he starts me on the type 2 meds and so forth, with exercise, diet, the whole nine yards and a certified diabetes educator. i turned my life upside down, started going to a trainer, started trying to figure out what to eat, went down rabbit holes like you wouldn’t believe on the internet because i like to research things to death.”
the problem was, nothing worked. sonia was tired and irritable. when she saw her endocrinologist again and was visibly frustrated, he decided to test her blood for type 1 diabetes. and yes, the results revealed type 1 diabetes, and she started all over again. a diabetes educator helped her to learn the ropes and adopt the continuous glucose monitoring technology that she’s come to appreciate and rely on. because she likes tech, she says that she got diabetes at the right time.
“here goes the whole stigma piece,” she adds to her final diagnosis. “i felt this real sense of relief that i had type 1, not 2, because then it wasn’t my fault that i wasn’t compliant, right? which is ridiculous. but that’s what i felt viscerally is like, oh, this is no longer my fault. it’s my autoimmune system.”
there are many factors that put people at risk for type 2 diabetes, including family history, prediabetes, blood lipid levels, sedentary lifestyle, excess weight and ethnicity.
finding support in the diabetes community
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for sonia, diabetes has been a learning curve and a continuing journey. she remembers one of the first times she spoke up about her disease at a retreat for her neighbourhood group for community services.
“i knew everybody in the room and the facilitators were lovely people. i sat there and as we’re going around to introduce ourselves, i wrestled with myself mentally for the entire time as to whether i say it or not. then i said ‘i live with type 1 diabetes, my alarm might go off. if you hear me beeping, it’s because my blood sugar’s low. don’t mind me, i can fix it.’ and the facilitator was like ‘thank you for your truth.’ i felt so validated and just a sense of relief that i put it out there. but putting it out there was terrifying.”
her advice to others is about finding a community for support and being kind to yourself.
“take a deep breath. this is a marathon, not a sprint. diabetes can be relentless, and you can’t get discouraged by your results. it’s just data,” she says of blood sugar monitoring.
“you’re only responsible for the effort you put into it … because you don’t always know why (your blood sugar) shot up or you forget something. i get irritated because i’ve gone out and (my blood sugar) is going low and i switched bags and i don’t have glucose to help. i always end up going out missing one thing and it’s the one thing i need.”
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